Assessment of clinical reasoning skills in veterinary students prior to and after the clinical year of training.

Objective—To examine the effect of various clinical tracks within the veterinary medical clinical curriculum at Texas A&M University on clinical diagnostic proficiency as determined by pre- and post-training assessment. We expected that the clinical track chosen by the student would impact their measured outcome with bias toward higher scores in their chosen field. Design—Prospective cohort study. Study Population—32 students from the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Texas A&M University. Procedures—By use of standardized, written case scenarios, clinical reasoning was assessed twice: once prior to the clinical (fourth) year of the curriculum and again at completion of the clinical year. Students demonstrated their abilities to collect and organize appropriate clinical data (history, physical examination, and laboratory findings), determine clinical diagnoses, and formulate and implement acceptable treatment modalities. Data from clinical assessments were compared for a given coho...